TV Debate Continues In Brussels

The debate over how the European Union should protect its broadcasting industry from US imports will continue today in Brussels.

With strong backing from the French, a plan was drawn up towards the end of last year to enforce more strictly the measures which require that at least 50% of programmes screened by European broadcasters are European-made, and to extend this to new services such as teleshopping. However such was the feeling of dissent from other members that a diluted plan is to be presented today by the audio-visual commissioner, Mr Joao de Deus Pinheiro (Portugal), applying the quotas only “where practicable.”

However the commissioner insists that channels such as Rupert Murdoch’s which have so far ignored the quotas would be asked to give clear reasons why.